AT&T Named Best Cellular Network for Video Streaming in U.S.

Which cellular network serves the best video experience? In testing conducted by Global Wireless Solutions, AT&T emerged as the clear winner for video streaming. GWS rated AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon in four categories—reliability of the video stream, time to load, amount of picture freezing, and video quality—with AT&T winning three of the four.

AT&T took top marks for reliability of the video stream, amount of picture freezing, and video quality. GWS notes that 98 percent of the videos it streamed over AT&T completed correctly, while freezing only 0.82 percent of the time.

Verizon was rated second best by GWS despite just so-so results: It took second in reliability of the video stream and third in all other categories. GWS says 98 percent of videos streamed on Verizon streamed as they should.

T-Mobile had the quickest time to load among the four networks—3.2 seconds—but earned third place overall. Finally, Sprint took last in the competition with fourth place finishes in each category. GWS says 8.5 percent of videos streamed on Sprint failed, and its average load time was 3.9 seconds.

"Video traffic now makes up over half of our mobile traffic. Mobile data traffic on AT&T’s national wireless network increased more than 250,000 percent from 2007 to 2017. We’re engineering and designing for another 10X growth in mobile data volume over our network by 2020," said AT&T Mobility and Entertainment senior vice president Vince Torres, celebrating the win in a blog post.

GWS drew its results from nearly half-a-million video tests run in 2017. It collected data in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.